It often takes tragedy of unspeakable proportions to either disabuse the powerful of idiocies they hold dear, or dislodge the powerful from their positions. From The Zman on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
In the spring of 1918, the Germans launched Operation Michael, a well designed offensive against the Allies, specifically designed to knockout the British Expeditionary Force in France. It was assumed, correctly, that the British were exhausted from the previous year’s battles. The Germans had close to a million fresh troops from the Eastern Front to throw at the British. The plan was to punch a hole in the lines and then surround the BEF in Flanders.
After the war, historians would call the German offensive the “final card” in the story of the Great War. The Germans had run out of options for winning the war. This was their last card they could play in order to go to the peace table as an equal. This spring offensive was going to be the great last gamble to force the Allies to the peace table and get a good deal from the process. If it failed, then all would be lost as the German people, as well as the German army, were close to collapse.
The funny thing about this phase of the war is that in retrospect, there was no way this could work as the Germans imagined. They had developed new tactics for punching through the lines and avoiding the meat grinder offensives of the past, but they lacked the mobility to exploit it. The role of cavalry had yet to be replaced by tanks and and armored personnel carriers. A retreating Allied army would have to be chased on foot and the German Army was starving.
One of the great things about the First World War is it has something for everyone. The Marxists had their take. The fascists, of course, had their interpretation. Americans have largely forgotten about it because we have been taught that history started in 1938. The lesson I have always thought most important is that old ideas, old ways of doing things and old systems for organizing people do not go away quietly. They have to be broken on the wheel of reality, before they are consigned to the past.
By the Battle of the Frontiers, the military planners on both sides should have known there would be no quick end to the war as the technology had outstripped their military strategies. Machine guns made cavalry useless. Barbed wire and trenches made infantry useless. The only result from an attack would be thousands instantly killed or wounded, with maybe a small advance into enemy territory. Yet, they continued doing what they were doing, battle after battle for four years.
Another lesson of the Great War is that as the old system or organizing Europe murdered itself, it often looked strong, when it was crumbling. The Russian Czar appeared to be fully in control of his country, at least to outsiders, until the moment his train to Petrograd was stopped by a group of disloyal troops. The German offensive in 1918 had General Haig, the commander of the BEF, convinced they should sue for peace as the Germans were too strong to resist. Six months later, the German Army was broken at the Second Battle of the Marne in August 1918.
To continue reading: The Last Cards
